▸ The Quest for Clarity: Chapter 26

Ivy's consciousness floated in a peculiar space, caught in a delicate balance between being awake and asleep, until the chilling grasp of the Unbound Realm enveloped her completely. As soon as she regained her senses, she sensed it—the transformation. The moment she regained her awareness, she felt it—the shift.

Her outfit had changed once again; the familiar weight of her usual school uniform was nowhere to be found. Instead, she found herself draped in a loose, white fabric that resembled a hospital gown. The unnatural chill of the Unbound Realm's endless, reflective floor seeped into her skin, but what truly drew her attention was the sensation of something heavy coiling around her. Ivy raised her hands to discover strands of impossibly long, black hair entwined around her, encasing her like a cocoon. Her heart raced as she followed the winding trail of hair with her gaze, tracing its path across the vast, empty expanse.

And then, she saw her.

Amritkala.

The goddess lingered in the boundless void, her towering presence rendering Ivy small and inconsequential. Seated gracefully on the ground with her long legs crossed, she observed Ivy with an all-knowing gaze that seemed to penetrate her very being, despite the absence of eyes on her face. Her ethereal robes flowed over the shimmering surface like streams of light, while her eight arms were positioned in gentle, elegant poses—calm, collected, and strangely inviting.

The sight of her never failed to unsettle Ivy, but this time, Amritkala's presence wasn't steeped in the eerie discomfort that usually made Ivy's skin crawl. No, this time, there was something different.

She seemed...pleased.

A gentle murmur caressed Ivy's thoughts, a voice tender yet unavoidable, reminiscent of an everlasting echo. "You have returned to me sooner than expected."

Ivy exhaled sharply, pushing past the unnatural stillness of the realm. "Yeah, well, I didn't exactly have a choice." She stood up, paying no mind to how Amritkala's hair slid off her like silk unravelling. Her fingers twitched restlessly, a surge of annoyance bubbling just below the surface. "I need answers."

Amritkala tilted her head, a slight but deliberate motion. "Answers?"

Ivy's hands tightened into fists, nails digging into her palms. "Cut the crap. You gave me these powers when you turned me into a Semi-Immortal, remember? Well, guess what? I just found out I have a second one. So, spill. Did you conveniently 'forget' to mention that little tidbit, or do you just get a kick out of watching me stumble around in the dark?"

A beat of silence hung in the air before the voice echoed back in her head, laced with what sounded suspiciously like amusement. "You think I'm keeping secrets from you?"

"I know you are," Ivy shot back, taking a step closer. "I've only ever used the ability I thought I had—the one where I paralyze people and make them hallucinate their worst fears. But something else happened recently. Diane—" She stopped herself, biting back the rest of the story. "Someone felt…something. When I touched them. It's like I was draining them, taking something away. And I need to know what the hell that was all about."

The silence hung heavy, like a thick curtain between them. Then, slowly, deliberately, Amritkala raised a hand and gestured towards Ivy, the air itself seeming to crackle with unspoken energy. "The abilities I bestow aren't hand-picked by me, you know," the deity said, her voice even and calm as always. "They're... well, they're all you."

Ivy's eyes narrowed, suspicion tightening her face. "Okay, what's that supposed to mean?"

Amritkala didn't reply right away. Instead, she extended her other hand, and in her palm, an image flickered to life, hazy like a mirage. It was distorted, like looking at a reflection ripple on water, except, instead of water is was through an actual eye. Ivy's breath hitched in her throat. It was her. Younger, smaller, standing in a dimly lit room, her fists clenched tight. She was shaking. And then came the voices, cruel and mocking, laced with dismissal. The sheer weight of being ignored and unwanted seemed to pour from the vision, a suffocating fog threatening to drown her.

"You've lived a life shrouded in shadows, haven't you? Cast aside like a broken toy, unseen, your worth diminished to nothing," Amritkala murmured, her voice resonating with an unsettling empathy. The illusory vision flickered, a strobe of Ivy's forgotten past: faces averted in calculated indifference, whispered dismissals that stung like acid, the casual cruelty of those who deemed her lesser. "A parasite, they branded you. A burden."

Ivy's fists clenched so tight her knuckles turned white. "Don't," she choked out, the word barely audible.

Unfazed, Amritkala continued, her voice a steady current. "But even the smallest parasite possesses the will to endure, to thrive. And so, your being adapted, evolved in response to the harsh realities of your existence."

The vision dissolved, leaving Ivy gasping for air, the echoes of past hurts still reverberating within her. Amritkala's presence filled the void, an immense, unwavering force, not threatening, but resolute.

"The second ability you possess is born of this survival," Amritkala explained, her words echoing in the sudden silence. "It draws sustenance from others, siphoning their very emotions, transmuting their feelings into a strength that fuels you. It feeds you in ways you were never meant to be fed."

A cold knot formed in Ivy's stomach, constricting her breath. "So that's it?" she rasped, her voice thick with disbelief. "I steal from people now? I leech off their feelings? That's my power?"

Amritkala met Ivy's simmering rage with a serene patience that only served to fuel the inferno within her. "You take what is given," Amritkala said, her voice a low, resonant hum. "The world starved you, and so you learned to feed yourself."

Ivy whirled away, desperation clawing at her throat. Her fingers tangled in her hair, expecting to find the vibrant, purple colour she'd worn like a shield, but recoiled in shock. Dull, dirty blonde strands spilled through her fingers, the colour of forgotten fields. Here, in this place, her carefully constructed façade was crumbling. Each returned detail of her natural appearance felt like a layer of clothing ripped away, leaving her shivering and exposed.

"This is bullshit," she spat, the word a venomous hiss. "Why couldn't I just get normal powers? Something useful, something practical, something that doesn't make me..." Her voice fractured, the carefully constructed wall around her emotions threatening to crumble. She clenched her jaw, fighting to regain control. "Something that doesn't make me exactly what everyone said I was."

For the first time, Amritkala's words were a clear, unadorned truth. "Because power is not chosen," she stated, her gaze unwavering. "It is revealed."

The air left Ivy's lungs in a sharp, painful scoff. She bit back a retort, the silence hanging heavy between them, thick with unspoken resentment and the weight of unwanted revelation.

After a moment, she exhaled through her nose. "Fine. Then tell me how it works."

Ivy's breath was slow, controlled, but her heart pounded beneath her ribs as Amritkala loomed before her, still and knowing. Though the deity had shrunk to a more human-like form, she remained towering, draped in celestial robes that shimmered like stardust. Her sapphire-blue skin bore an ethereal glow, and her eight arms rested in gestures of serenity. The lack of eyes on her face did not diminish the weight of her gaze—if anything, it made her presence all the more unnerving.

"You wish to understand," Amritkala murmured, her voice threading through Ivy's mind like a whispered current. "Then listen."

Ivy swallowed, the lump in her throat a physical manifestation of the apprehension coiling in her gut. She managed a stiff nod, every muscle in her body taut with anticipation.

"Paralysis Shock," Amritkala began, her voice resonating with an ancient power as she raised a hand, palm open in silent offering. A swirling vortex of silver mist materialized above it, coalescing into miniature figures, each locked in place, a tableau vivant of frozen terror. "The eye is the window to the soul. Through it, you tether another to you, binding them with a gaze. The instant your vision ensnares them, they become extensions of your will. Their muscles seize, their resolve crumbles, leaving them trapped within the confines of their own unresponsive flesh, prisoners to your command."

Ivy observed the still figures quiver, a faint tremor revealing the tempest brewing inside them. Their eyes, large and shimmering with unfallen tears, mirrored a terror that words could scarcely capture, their faces twisted in mute cries of unimaginable fear.

"You do not simply hold them," Amritkala's voice resonated, each word a measured chime. "You unravel them. You peel back the layers of their defences, those paper-thin illusions of security they cling to, and expose the raw, festering fears beneath." Her gaze intensified, a starless night made manifest. "Their deepest terrors, once whispers in the dark, become inescapable screams. The longer you maintain the connection, the further they descend into the vortex of their own psyche. And should you linger too long..." With a languid turn of her hand, the spectral figures in the mist convulsed, their forms fracturing and collapsing into nothingness, leaving only wisps of vapor in their wake. "...you run the risk of tasting that abyss yourself."

A vice-like grip tightened around Ivy's throat, and a chilling awareness filled the air, heavy and suffocating. She'd kind of figured as much. The very first time she had locked eyes with Jake, a jarring flicker, had brushed against the periphery of her mind. She'd instinctively shut it down, but now she understood the danger. What could have happened if she hadn't?

"Okay, and the other one?" Ivy asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "The...the one I didn't even know existed?"

Amritkala's sinuous arms moved with deliberate grace, a new vision coalescing in the mist. Ivy watched, transfixed, as an image of herself emerged, her hand outstretched, fingers barely grazing the shoulder of a figure. At that moment of contact, a visible ripple shuddered through the scene, like ink bleeding into clear water. The figure visibly deflated, their shoulders slumping, their body curling inward as if some vital essence was being drawn, stolen, from their very being.

"Emotional Drain," Amritkala's voice echoed, a low murmur resonating with the stillness of the Unbound Realm. "Where Paralysis Shock imprisons flesh and thought, this… gift, takes a subtler, yet crueller toll. You are a living siphon, Ivy Reyna. Contact becomes consumption."

The vision shimmered, focusing again on Ivy. But this time, something was off. Shadows, like sentient tendrils, writhed and coiled around her, drawn from the figures she touched, leaving them washed in a sickening pallor. Ivy's eyes were abyssal pools, reflecting a maelstrom of emotions not born of her own heart. The individual before her seemed to wither, their breath a shallow rasp, as Ivy stood straighter, stronger, radiating a stolen vitality.

"You take what others cast off," Amritkala continued, her voice a measured cadence. "Fear, despair, the raw sting of agony—emotions that cripple others are your sustenance. You drink them in, whether by conscious choice or cruel instinct. And in that act, you transcend." Her many hands clasped together, and the unsettling vision dissolved into the echoing silence. "But heed this warning, my child. You are not merely a consumer. You are a vessel. And every vessel, strained beyond its capacity, is destined to overflow."

The warning struck Ivy like a physical blow, a shard of ice piercing through her. "What does that mean?" she whispered, her voice thin and reedy, laced with a sudden, bone-deep exhaustion. She hadn't registered the creeping heaviness in her limbs, the insidious way the Unbound Realm itself was leeching her strength. The edges of her vision softened, blurring at the periphery, and a crushing fatigue descended, pressing on her like an invisible, suffocating weight.

Amritkala stepped forward, closing the space between them with an eerie grace. "You will learn, in time. But for now...rest."

Ivy wanted to argue, wanted to pry further, but before she could, the deity's hands lifted. Eight palms, cool and steady, pressed against her temples and gently covered her eyes. The darkness was instant, all-consuming, and Ivy barely had time to register the sensation of weightlessness before her consciousness slipped away.

The last thing she heard was Amritkala's whisper, soft and distant.

"Be careful what you take, Ivy Reyna. Some things do not let go so easily."

The words hung in the air, a silken thread stretched taut and then abruptly, irrevocably, severed. Then, a profound and absolute silence descended, a heavy, suffocating blanket muffling everything, even the frantic beat of her own heart.

⋯ 

Ivy's awareness flickered as the Unbound Realm receded, melting away into the fringes of consciousness. The memory of Amritkala's touch, the fleeting sensation of her hands resting gently over Ivy's eyes, lingered like a phantom imprint, a whisper of wisdom too immense to fully comprehend. And just like that, she was back.

The familiar weight of her mattress grounded her, the scent of her room filling her senses. But something was different. The warmth cradling her head, the rhythmic motion of fingers threading through her hair—it wasn't her pillow. It was softer, warmer.

Ivy's eyes slowly opened, gradually adapting to the dim light streaming in through the blinds. Her head nestled against the yielding warmth of Violet's thighs. Still clad in her school uniform, just as Ivy was, Violet sat with a tranquil stillness, her fingers lost in the vibrant chaos of Ivy's purple, shaggy hair. For a beat, Violet's gaze lingered on the bandage covering Ivy's neck, the one concealing her Semi-Immortal marking. An unreadable emotion, a fleeting shadow of something deep and complex, danced in Violet's eyes before she registered Ivy's awakening.

Their eyes locked, a shared flicker of surprise dancing between them, quickly dissolving into a tender softness. The silence stretched before Ivy finally broke it, her voice still softened by sleep. "Violet?" she breathed, the name a gentle question.

Violet's face bloomed with warmth, a small, hesitant smile gracing her lips. "Hey," she murmured, her voice a soothing balm. "I'm home."

A soft chuckle bubbled from Ivy's throat as she reached out, her fingertips tracing a light path across Violet's cheek. "Welcome back... how was school?"

Violet's hand rose to meet Ivy's, her fingers entwining with hers, holding it close. The smile on her face wavered, a subtle shift revealing a flicker of unease. There was a hesitant quality to her touch, a shadow of uncertainty that hadn't been there moments before. "It was good..." she began, then paused, drawing a shallow breath. "But, well… uh… can we… talk?"